THE SUNSET CLUB Read online

  Meet the members of the Sunset Club: Pandit Preetam Sharma, Nawab Barkatullah Baig and Sardar Boota Singh. Friends for over forty years, they are now in their eighties. And every evening, at the sunset hour, they sit together on a bench in Lodhi Gardens to exchange news and views on the events of the day, talking about everything from love, lust, sex and scandal to religion and politics.

  As he follows a year in the lives of the three men–from January 26, 2009 to January 26, 2010–Khushwant Singh brings his characters vibrantly to life, with his piquant portrayals of their fantasies and foibles, his unerring ear for dialogue and his genius for capturing the flavour and texture of everyday life in their households. Interwoven with this compelling human story is another chronicle–of a year in the life of India, as the country goes through the cycle of seasons, the tumult of general elections, violence, natural disasters and corruption in high places.

  In turn ribald and lyrical, poignant and profound, The Sunset Club is a deeply moving exploration of friendship, sexuality, old age and infirmity; a joyous celebration of nature; an insightful portrait of India’s paradoxes and complexities.

  A masterpiece from one of India’s most-loved storytellers, The Sunset Club will have you in tears and laughter, and grip you from the first page to the last.

  KHUSHWANT SINGH is India’s best-known writer and columnist. He has been founder–editor of Yojana, and editor of the Illustrated Weekly of India, the National Herald and the Hindustan Times. He is the author of classics such as Train to Pakistan, I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale, Delhi, The Company of Women and Burial at Sea. His non-fiction includes the classic two-volume A History of the Sikhs; a number of translations and works on Sikh religion and culture, Delhi, nature, current affairs and Urdu poetry. His autobiography, Truth, Love and a Little Malice, was published by Penguin Books in 2002. Absolute Khushwant: The Low-Down on Life, Death and Most Things In-Between was published in 2010.

  Khushwant Singh was a member of Parliament from 1980 to 1986. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1974, but returned the decoration in 1984 in protest against the storming of the Golden Temple by the Indian army. In 2007 he was awarded the Padma Vibhushan.

  The Sunset Club is Khushwant Singh at his best—as a storyteller, a chronicler of our times, a nature-lover and an irreverent sage.

  Cover photograph by Bhavi Mehta

  Author photo by Mustafa Quraishi

  Cover design by Ajanta Guhathakurta

  THE SUNSET CLUB

  Analects of the Year 2009

  Khushwant Singh

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  For Reeta Devi of Tripura

  Maharani of Sujan Singh Park

  Delhi’s own Mother Teresa

  CONTENTS

  Copyright

  Apologia

  1. Lodhi Gardens

  2. The Month of Flowers

  3. Spring into Summer

  4. Now that April is Here

  5. May of the Laburnums

  6. Month of the Scorcher

  7. Cry of the Peacock

  8. Nothing to Celebrate in August

  9. Summer Merges with Autumn

  10. Gandhi’s October

  11. The Guru’s November

  12. December of the Blue Moon

  13. The Sunset Hour

  Copyright Acknowledgements

  APOLOGIA

  I had no intention of writing this novel. I had turned ninety-five and was not sure I would be able to finish it. Having nothing to do I became restless. Then Sheela Reddy of Outlook magazine suggested I record memories of my dead friends about whom I talked so much. The idea germinated and I got down to doing so. I mixed facts with fantasy.

  My readers may find what I’ve written to be in bad taste—unacceptable in polite society. So be it. I have never been known for politeness or propriety. If you are offended by some things in the book, cast it aside.

  I wish to place on record my deep gratitude to Diya Kar Hazra and Nandini Mehta, my editors at Penguin Books, and to Lachhman Das and Rajinder Ganju who put my scrawl into readable shape.

  1

  LODHI GARDENS

  My story begins on the afternoon of Monday, the 26th of January 2009, the 59th anniversary of the founding of the independent Indian Republic. Although India gained independence from the British on the 15th of August 1947, its leaders wisely decided that mid-August was too hot and humid for outdoor celebrations and late January was a better time of the year to do so. So they picked the 26th of January, the day they gave the country its new Constitution. They declared it a national holiday and named it Republic Day—Ganatantra Divas.

  By the end of January, winter loosens its grip; by sunrise, foggy dawns turn into sunny mornings; the time for flowers and the calling of barbets is round the corner.

  Republic Day is the biggest event in India’s calendar. It is the only one celebrated throughout the country by all of India’s communities—Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains and Parsis. In every state capital they have flag hoistings, and parades of troops, police and schoolchildren.

  However, there is nothing to match the grand spectacle in the capital city, with its display of India’s military might and cultural diversity. Tanks, armoured cars, rocket launchers roll by; cannons boom; massed squads of soldiers, sailors, airmen march past, dipping their swords in salute; cavalrymen mounted on camels and horses are followed by floats of different states highlighting their achievements, with folk dancers dancing round them. People start assembling from the early hours of dawn, to line up along both sides of Rajpath. This broad avenue runs from Rashtrapati Bhavan—the President’s Palace—atop Raisina Hill, down the slope between the two huge Secretariat buildings, North and South Blocks, to the massive War Memorial Arch known as India Gate, which bears the names of Indian soldiers who fell in the First World War, the Third Afghan War in 1919, and the 1971 confrontation with neighbouring Pakistan. In the centre of India Gate burns a celestial flame all day and night, in honour of men who laid down their lives for their Motherland.

  You may well ask why India, which prides itself as the land of Gandhi, the apostle of peace and non-violence, celebrates the national day with such a display of lethal arms and fighting prowess. The truth is, we Indians are full of contradictions: we preach peace to the world and prepare for war. We preach purity of mind, chastity and the virtues of celibacy; we are also obsessed with sex. That makes us interesting. However, we do make up for the vulgar display of arms by having a Beating Retreat ceremony on Vijay Chowk (Victory Square) facing the Secretariat buildings. Here massed bands of the Army, Navy and Air Force bear no arms but trumpets, flutes, clarinets, drums and bagpipes, and march up and down the Square. The function ends with bells ringing out Gandhi’s favourite hymn, ‘Abide with Me’. A day later, on the 30th of January, the day we murdered Gandhi, our leaders assemble at Rajghat where we cremated him, and strew flowers on a slab of black marble where we reduced him to ashes. That’s the kind of people we are. And that is why we are interesting.

  Let me get back to my story. Around noon, the parade on Rajpath is over and crowds begin to disperse. Some go to the nearby Purana Qila, the Old Fort, to picnic on the lawns and doze in the sun. There are other ancient monuments which provide similar space and quiet. The most popular of them is Lodhi Gardens. It is within easy walking distance from Rajpath, and has a vast variety of trees, birds and medieval monuments. It is perhaps the most scenic historic park in India. At one time it was a scatter of tombs and mosques in a village called Khairpur. In the 1930s the villagers were moved out and the monuments taken under government protection.

  Then the Vicereine, Lady Willingdon, who was somewhat batty and wanted her name to go down in posterity, had the scattered monuments enclosed wi
thin walls and an entrance gate erected on the north side, bearing the inscription ‘Lady Willingdon Park’. She also had a cinder track laid out for the Sahibs and their Mems to ride on. All that is history. No one now calls it Lady Willingdon Park, the cinder track has become a cobbled stone footpath, and the park is known as Lodhi Gardens because most of its monuments were built during the rule of the Lodhi dynasty. Today it has three more entrances. A second one is also in the north, with a small car park. People have to walk across an old stone bridge called aathpula (eight-spanned), over a moat which once guarded the walled enclosure of the tomb of Sikandar Lodhi, built in 1518, through an avenue of maulsari trees to the centre of the park. There is another entrance on the eastern side, along the India International Centre, and one more in the south, close to a palm-lined avenue leading to the oldest tomb in the complex, that of Muhammad Shah Sayyid, built in 1450.

  For good reason, the most popular place in the park is the extensive lawn on the southern side of what must have been the main mosque, the Jami Masjid, built in 1494. The reason for its popularity is its dome, which is an exact replica of a young woman’s bosom including the areola and the nipple. Most mosques and mausolea have domes but they have metal spires put on top of them which rob them of their feminine charm. Not the Bara Gumbad, the Big Dome. You can gape at it for hours on end and marvel at its likeness to a virgin’s breast. You will notice that men sprawled on the lawns have their face towards it; their womenfolk sit facing the other way. It also has a bench facing it. Regular visitors to the park call it Boorha Binch, old men’s bench, because for years, three old men have been sitting on it after they have hobbled round the park. While they talk, their gaze is fixed on Bara Gumbad. English-speaking Indians call them the ‘Sunset Club’ because the three men who occupy the bench are seen on it every day at sunset. All three are in their late eighties, the sunset years of their lives.

  Let me introduce you to the members of the Sunset Club. First Pandit Preetam Sharma, because he is the eldest of the three. He is a Punjabi Brahmin, an Oxford graduate who served as cultural counsellor in London and Paris and rose to the highest position in the Ministry of Education before he retired. He is well preserved, bald in front but with white locks flowing down his skull and curling up around his shoulders. They give him a scholarly look. He is in good health but needs glasses to read, hearing aids to hear and dentures to eat. He believes in Ayurveda and homeopathy. Although there were a succession of women, foreign and Indian, in his life, he narrowly escaped marrying one. He lives with his spinster sister, Sunita, who is almost twenty years younger than him and works with an NGO. They live in a ground-floor flat close to Khan Market. It has two bedrooms and two bathrooms, a large drawing–dining room, a study and two verandas.

  One wall of the drawing room has a bookshelf packed with books which he has not read, nor intends to read. They create the impression that he is a man of learning. Other walls have paintings he made after he retired from service. No one except he understands what they are about but they do create the impression that he is a man of culture. He writes long poems in blank verse. He has them printed in Khan Market and gives copies freely to his visitors. Having risen to the top in the Ministry of Education, he is chairman of many cultural and social organizations and school boards. He makes a very good chairman as he makes profound statements like ‘Culture knows no frontiers; all religions teach truth and love’; etc., etc. He has no enemies. All the men and women who know him love him. For company he has had a succession of Apsos named Dabboo One, Two and Three. He has a car and a chauffeur provided by a school whose chairman he is. It takes him, his servant Pavan and Dabboo Three to the northern entrance of Lodhi Gardens. He does a round of the park followed by Pavan and the dog before he takes his seat on the Boorha Binch. His servant and dog sit behind him on the lawn.

  Second is Nawab Barkatullah Baig Dehlavi. He is a Sunni Mussalman whose Pathan ancestors settled in Delhi before the British took over the country. They combined soldiering with the practice of Yunani (Greek) medicine. They were granted land close to what is today Nizamuddin. Barkatullah’s father set up a chain of Yunani dawakhanas (pharmacies) in the old city but preferred living in his large house in Nizamuddin. It is a spacious mansion named Baig Manzil. It has many rooms, verandas, a large garden in front and staff quarters at the back. Baig does not believe in amassing books; he finished with them after school and college. He has a few diwans of Urdu poets and an impressive collection of artefacts from Mughal times which are on display in his sitting room. He is a powerfully built six-footer with grey-white hair, a handlebar moustache and a short clipped beard.

  Like all good Muslims from well-to-do families, Baig went to Aligarh Muslim University before he took over his father’s business and, on his demise, his mansion. He is married to his cousin Sakina. They have a brood of children. But for occasional visits to Chawri Bazaar, the courtesans’ street, and bedding his wife’s maidservants in his younger days, he has been a faithful husband. After the partition of the country in 1947, he stayed on in India, joined the Congress Party and is a supporter of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. For over forty years he has been a regular stroller in Lodhi Gardens. The chauffeur of his Mercedes-Benz drops him at the southern entrance of the park. He does his rounds of the monuments followed by a servant pushing a wheelchair, before he takes his seat on the bench facing Bara Gumbad. Even in his eighties, Baig is in good shape: no glasses, no hearing aids, no false teeth, though he is occasionally short of breath.

  Third is Sardar Boota Singh. He is a stocky Sikh with a paunch. The unshorn hair on his head is snow-white. Instead of tying a six-yard-long turban he has taken to wearing a cotton or woollen cap. He dyes his beard and looks younger than his eighty-six years. He suffers from many ailments: chronic constipation, incipient diabetes, fluctuating blood pressure, enlarged prostate and periodic bouts of gout. He has been wearing glasses since his schooldays, half a denture as all his lower teeth are gone, and for some years, hearing aids as well. He professes to be an agnostic sybarite, but every morning when he gets up around 4 a.m. he prays for his health and repeats Aum Arogyam many times, followed by the Gayatri Mantra and a Sikh hymn designed to keep sorrows at a distance:

  May ill-winds not touch me, the Lord is my Protector.

  Around me Rama has drawn a wall to protect me;

  No harm will come to me, brother.

  The True Guru, who put the Universe together

  Gave me Rama’s name as panacea against all ills;

  Meditate on Him and Him alone.

  He saves those who deserve saving; He removes all doubts

  Says Nanak, the Lord is merciful. He is my helper.

  He explains the contradictions in his agnosticism and hedonism by saying: ‘Who knows! They say prayers can work miracles. No harm in trying them out.’

  Prayers seldom help him, so he supplements them with a variety of pills from dawn to after dinner.

  Boota had his higher education in England and served with Indian missions in London and Paris before he returned to Delhi and took to writing for newspapers. He lives in a flat close to Sharma’s. The walls of his sitting room are lined with books: works of fiction, anthologies of poetry, biographies and books banned as pornographic. His favourites are books of quotations and anthologies of poetry, both Urdu and English. He has memorized quite a few and comes out with them at every opportunity. People think he is a man of learning but he knows he is a bit of a fraud.

  Boota is a widower with two children. His son has migrated to Canada. His daughter, who is widowed, lives close by with her daughter. Though he lives alone, he is never lonely; he has a constant stream of ladies visiting him in the evening when he opens his bar. He is a great talker and a windbag. He makes up salacious stories of his conquests, which keep his audience spellbound. He uses bad language as if it was his birthright. When he is tired of company, he simply says, ‘Now bugger off.’ If he disapproves of a person, he calls him ‘phuddoo’, which is Punjabi for fucker
. And every other person including himself is a ‘chootia’—cunt-born. Every evening he drives down to the India International Centre. He spends an hour there sipping coffee, then enters Lodhi Gardens through its eastern entrance past the Kos Minar. He too takes a couple of rounds of the park before he joins the other two on the bench facing Bara Gumbad.

  How the three men got to form the Sunset Club is a long story. Sharma and Boota knew each other since their days in Lahore; by coincidence, both happened to be posted in London and then Paris at the same time. Back in Delhi both met in Lodhi Gardens every evening. Sharma was interested in meeting important people, Boota in trees and birds. Baig did not know either of them. For years he passed them as he did others. After some time they began to raise their hands in recognition. And still later, when they found themselves sitting on the same bench, introductions were made. They became friends and the Sunset Club came into being.

  On the afternoon of the 26th of January 2009, Lodhi Gardens is more crowded than on other days. On its many lawns men and women lie sprawled on the grass. Around each group is a debris of paper plates and cups, with stray dogs wagging their tails, begging for leftovers.

  One after another the three members of the Sunset Club arrive and take their seats on the Boorha Binch. Each one in turn puts out both hands with palms open as if pushing something—an all-India gesture asking if all is hunky-dory. After they have greeted each other with aji aao (come, come), sab theek thaak (is all okay?), Sharma replies: ‘Bhagwan ki daya hai—God is merciful.’ Baig says: ‘Alhamdulillah—Allah be praised.’ Boota says: ‘Chalta hai—life goes on.’ Baig opens the dialogue: ‘Ganatantra Divas mubarak ho—congratulations for Republic Day.’ Sharma returns the greetings in the same words: ‘Aap ko bhi mubarak ho.’ Boota strikes a sour note: ‘What is there to be congratulated about? We have made a bloody mess of our country. Murders, massacres, rapes, corruption, robberies like nothing we have ever seen before. Shame on us.’